Alex Chiba, College Student

Alex Chiba is a college student about to graduate from college and enter the workforce. He was a few weeks away from his finals test but today his mind was on his future. He was walking through his local mall hoping to find an affordable personal computer to move on from his old Google Chromebook laptop. As he walked through the mall he, as he did everyday no matter where he was, habitually checked his phone.

However this has only annoyed him as each time he checked his phone was still unable to turn on. When he entered the mall it told him it was ‘updating’ and was unresponsive since. He is now starting to think he was hacked. "Fuck, it looks like I need to buy a new phone.” He said before checking it one last time and being pleasantly surprised.

There however was good news and bad news. Good news, his phone was finally on and responsive but bad news it was stuck on what looked to be the homepage of a new and foreign app to Alex. Alex tried his best to turn the app off no matter what he tried he was unsuccessful. Alex may have been a computer major but even he was terrible when it came to his own smartphone.

“What’s the matter?” An unfamiliar voice asked Alex. He turned to see the barista from the mall’s coffee shop he just left, having stopped by to get some coffee as a ‘pick-me-up’, asking concern. Apparently his state of frustration was obvious to everyone around him. Even his phone worries came second to the beauty of the concerned barista.

“N-nothing.” Alex shooed her away embarrassed as he turned back to his phone. Turning on the screen he is welcomed with an unfamiliar application with a big title "Reality Edit App" and only two buttons under - "Start Reality Alteration" and "App Information". Clicking on the info button he is presented with a long text explanation of how the app works.

“Bullshit! How can I believe this? An app that allows a person like me to alter people? And they are unaware of it?" He face-palmed his forehead. But something was intriguing about the application. "What if it's true? The phone looks unusable anyway so giving it a try can do no harm."

He clicked on "Start Editing Reality" and he was welcomed with a message. 'Please select target to generate statements.'. Opening a list of targets he is welcomed with few names.

"Oh my god!" How can the app know his name? "They hacked all my phone data..." He spots the names of people he knew. "This is unreal!" There are a few names he does not recognize. He looked up towards the barista who returned to working behind the counter with her name tag reading ‘Veruca’ and he sweat as he looked down to see the same name on the list on his phone.